Smoldering with dangerous intrigue, The Most Famous Girl in the World by Iman Hariri-Kia (A Hundred Other Girls) features a young journalist hot on the trail of a beautiful con artist posing as a wealthy socialite. Readers will find Hariri-Kia's action-packed plot as entertaining as her deeply flawed narrator's lively, profanity-laden inner dialogue in a story heavily flavored with comedic mishaps and sexual drama.
One could say that anxiety-prone New Yorker Rose Aslani has something of an obsessive nature. Eking out a living at a publication known for its "quippy headlines," Rose must navigate not only a difficult boss but also her own tendency to self-sabotage. While everyone else is awed by enigmatic socialite Poppy Hastings, a convicted-fraudster-turned-Internet-sensation, Rose is convinced Poppy is responsible for a series of gruesome murders. And she'll do anything to prove it, no matter the cost to her career.
Everyone has something to hide in Hariri-Kia's marvelous second novel. After being mocked as a child for her Iranian heritage, Rose masks feelings of dislocation and otherness by keeping people at arm's length. All that changes when she meets Simon, a shockingly handsome FBI agent investigating Poppy. At first she can't stand sanctimonious Simon and his condescending attitude, but they soon join forces as more people in Poppy's orbit turn up dead.
With a brilliant, deviously clever ending, The Most Famous Girl in the World exposes the dangers inherent in online celebrity culture's tendency to reward bad behavior and tenderly captures a young woman's struggle to be comfortable in her Middle Eastern-American skin. --Shahina Piyarali